No question about it, the state of Arizona shouldn't have taken two hours to execute Joseph Wood last week. Ditto for the convict in Ohio whose execution took a half-hour in January. And you can throw in the killer in Oklahoma who actually died of a heart attack after his execution was halted because the drugs weren't being administered properly.

That should never happen. Doctors know what it takes to execute a person. A condemned criminal should be given a cocktail of meds that immediately renders him unconscious and sends him to Judgment Day very soon thereafter. The whole procedure should take 10 minutes tops.

Texas has carried out dozens of executions that follow this scenario. But European nations opposed to the death penalty have cut off exports of the drugs previously used here, so states are scrambling to find alternatives - and pharmacies willing to sell them.

Still, this bungling is inexcusable. Even if the European drugs have been eliminated, there have to be many other substances in the U.S. that will do the job. If you give an inmate a massive dose of that stuff, the end should come quickly and humanely. State officials are simply dropping the ball on an important task they should be doubly and triply sure of. That's government for you.

But while these prolonged executions are troubling, they are not a tragedy. Or a crime. Or torture.

Those words are being misused in this debate - which ironically applies to people who caused real tragedies.

It's not even clear if the inmates suffered much - or at all - in these botched executions. They were gasping for breath and moving about on the gurney, but they were also unconscious while all that was going on. In some cases they may have already been brain-dead.

None of them regained consciousness once the executions began. There's just no evidence that they were in great pain at any time - or even knew what was happening.

And don't forget: We're talking about an execution, not a surgical procedure. The goal was to kill the person, and there's an inherent unpleasantness to that.

If you want to feel sorry for someone, the world is full of noble and deserving people who suffer every day. Shed your tears for them, not someone who brutally murdered another person or two.

Above all, remember that the victims of these killers experienced truly ghastly deaths, nightmares of pain and terror. If you cause that horror to an innocent human being, your might deserve a few uncomfortable moments when you get ready to face your maker.

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Thomas Taschinger, TTaschinger@BeaumontEnterprise.com, is the editorial page editor of The Beaumont Enterprise. Follow him on Twitter at @PoliticalTom